Capacity development for too long has endured the stereotypical characterization of “just training and technical assistance” that has undermined its broader legitimacy. We need to shift to a new and bolder vision of capacity development, one that seeks to catalyze domestic collective capacity for change by inspiring, connecting and empowering transformative leaders and coalitions for change.
Many countries are using innovation funds in the agricultural sector to support innovators and their links to public institutions, private entrepreneurs, and other actors, such as groups of rural producers. These funds create platforms for innovative activity by providing incentives for quality and collaboration. This report synthesizes experience with the two main innovation funds that the World Bank has used to fund agricultural innovation—competitive research grants and matching grants—and offers lessons and guidelines for designing and implementing them.
This document provides guidelines for Innovation Platform (IP) facilitation and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of IP processes and outcomes. Although it has been written for PROGEBE (project on ‘Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock of West Africa) staff at the site, national and regional levels, it is believed to have wider relevance beyond this specific project and specifically applies to projects which have a similar structure.
This article aims to analyse some of the possibilities and barriers that local communities face in promoting endogenous industrial development in an increasingly globalised economy. The analysis is based on the view that regionalisation is an important aspect of the globalisation trend and, therefore, a crucial economic trend in the international economy. In the second section, some theoretical issues are introduced and some policy background and dilemmas set out.
This paper is a reflection on a research project that defied the conventional technology transfer approach and adopted an approach based on innovation system principles to address fodder scarcity. Fodder scarcity in the project was conceptualized not as lack of technical capacity, but as lack of innovation capacity. This project tried to enhance innovation capacity by promoting appropriate configurations of stakeholders. However, translating this theory and principles into action was fraught with numerous challenges.
Recent experiences in participatory video-making raise the question of how best to use this medium for enhancing local seed innovation systems. Embedded in a mini-process of participatory action research, two styles of participatory video—scripted and scriptless—were tested and assessed together with farmers and facilitators in Bogra District, Bangladesh.
In-depth analysis of the role and capacity development needs of farmers organization in innovation processes, using the evidence from a number of case studies from contemporary SSA agriculture. Experiences indicate that Farmers’organizations (FOs) can play an important role in sharing knowledge-for-innovation by initiating multi-actor platforms for interactive learning and by implementing joint activity programmes (including use of the media) with extension services on a cost-sharing basis.
This Guide to Evaluating Rural Extension has been developed by the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). The purpose is to support those involved in extension evaluation to choose how to conduct more comprehensive, rigorous, credible and useful evaluations. The Guide supports readers to understand different types of evaluation, to make decisions on what is most appropriate for their circumstances, and to access further sources of theoretical and practical information.
The universal application of the T&V model of agricultural extension in more than 50 countries is one of agricultural development’s best known failures. The approach worked well in places where it was originally developed, but proved inappropriate almost everywhere else. In this report Rasheed Sulaiman V. and Andy Hall worry that an apparently successful extension innovation piloted in India is set to suffer a similar fate.
This paper is based on the 8th GLOBELICS International Conference: Making Innovation Work for Society (1 - 3 November 2010, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). The paper presents three projects of the Research Into Use Program, located in South asia, which are applying three agriculture value chain development oriented knowledge for wider use. Practical aspects of the process and roles played by different types of ageincies in the innovation are discussed.